Barley and Prune Pudding

Low-Cal But Still Lovely
Greetings Weight Watchers and those folks just trying to eat healthier. The holidays are upon us and that means nothing but trouble! So here is a great pudding using barley (which is much more nutritious than white rice pudding) with prunes which are a gift from mother nature. It all comes together to form a delicious treat. In the new points system it's a 4 point dessert, but hey aren’t you worth it?

Ingredients
1 quart skim milk
1/4 cup raw barley
2 eggs
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
3 chopped pitted prunes
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Procedure
Put milk in a large sauce pan, add barley, cover, and cook slowly for about 30 minutes until barley is tender. Preheat oven to 350. Beat eggs add honey and vanilla and chopped prunes. Slowly stir egg mixture into barley mixture and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour mixture into individual ramekins and top with cinnamon. Bake for 20 minutes, or until custard sets. Cool and refrigerate.

The 11 Best Foods We Never Eat

This is from a New York Times article from this summer. It's worth thinking about!

• Beets Rich in folate (which is a B vitamin), a potential cancer fighter. Try some Jewish borscht, or make roast beets and add them to your salad.
  
• Cabbage Full of cancer fighting enzymes, Sautéed as a side dish at dinner, coleslaw is easy and great on sandwiches.
  
• Swiss Chard Full of carotenoids, good for the eyes, sautéed greens are super healthy, cheap to buy, and really easy to grow.
  
• Cinnamon May help control blood sugar and cholesterol. Put it on everything!
  
• Pomegranate juice Full of antioxidants may lower blood pressure. Eat the fruit, drink the juice, reduce the juice into a syrup and add it to your vinaigrette.
  
• Prunes Packed with antioxidants. Use them in Hamentachen or other cookie fillings, or nice to serve with lamb.
  
• Pumpkin seeds Packed with magnesium, which is associated with lowering risk of early death. As a snack or on salads
  
• Sardines High in Omega-3. Loaded with calcium, as well as B vitamins and lots of other minerals. It’s an acquired taste. I like the French ones packed with good olive oil and a simple lemon slice. On rye bread with a little butter, Heaven!
  
• Turmeric The superstar of spices-has anti-inflammatory and anti cancer properties. Put a pinch in your eggs or on your veggies, makes food golden in color.
  
• Blueberries Helps improve memory, if you remember to eat them! Great in baked goods, cereal, yogurt, smoothies, or as a snack.
  
• Pumpkin High in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A. Canned is available all year and so easy to eat. Warm and mix with some butter, cinnamon, and honey or bake a pie.

Sauterne Baked Apples

The Altitude Adjustment Section
Sometimes all you want, especially after all the holiday sweets, is a simple baked apple. Here is a lovely French way to make baked apples.

Ingredients
6 pitted prunes
1 cup Sauterne
6 Macintosh or Rome apples
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons sugar
1 2-inch cinnamon stick
1/2 cup apricot preserves
lemon juice
2 tablespoons cognac

Procedure
Preheat oven to 350. Soak prunes in the Sauterne for 30 minutes. Drain and reserve the wine. Peel and core the apples — be careful not to go all the way through the bottom. Sprinkle the apples immediately with lemon juice to stop them from going brown. Butter a large ovenproof dish. Place the apples in the dish. Put one juicy prune inside each apple. Top with a little piece of butter and then add some sugar. Pour the saved Sauterne around the apples and add the cinnamon stick and cover the pan. Bake apples for 40 minutes, basting with the pan juice every 10 minutes. Be careful to cook them only to tender as they might blowup and fall apart.

Discard the cinnamon stick and put apples on serving platter. Place the pan on the stove and reduce the juices. Add the apricot jam and cognac and cook till the preserves dissolve and the sauce thickens. Taste and adjust at this point, you might want to add a little lemon juice. Pour sauce over apples. Might want to serve with a little whipped cream!

Hammentachen

The Altitude Adjustment Section
I know there is a story about Purim and Hammen and his hat and thus the hammentachen cookies you eat at Purim, but that is the extent of my Jewish background. All you need to know is this recipe was handed down to me from Aunt Ceil, the best cook in my family who is no longer with us, and who was not terribly willing to share her recipes with me. But once she tasted my carrot cake and asked for my recipe so I said okay if you give me your Hammentachen recipe. She gave it to me but left out the sugar amount. An oversight...? I don’t think so, and she never told me the mixing procedure but I think I got it. By the way, she later said: ”You know that carrot cake, I make it better than you!” Of course she did. Now this is a filled cookie and you can use prune butter (lekvar) which I modify, poppyseed filling (mun), or apricot butter or jam.

Ingredients for filling
1 jar Lekvar (prune butter)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Procedure
Just combine and set aside!

Ingredients for dough
1 cup Crisco, chilled
1 cup sugar
Juice and rind of 1 lemon
3 eggs
3 to 4 cups A.P. flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Procedure
Put 3 cups flour, sugar, salt and powder in a bowl. Add Crisco, and blend with your fingertips till mixture resembles small crumbs. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, lemon juice and zest. Add to flour mixture and mix with your hands. If mixture is soft and sticky, add the remaining 1 cup of flour. Bring dough together and wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight. The next day, form ping pong-size balls of dough and pinch them out till they are 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter. Place on floured board. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center and fold up three sides to form a triangle. Pinch edges closed leaving some of the filling exposed in the center. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, till golden brown. All these filling can be bought at gourmet stores, or Zabars if you are in the neighborhood! This recipe makes 3 dozen big cookies.

Prune and Cardamom Scones

The Altitude Adjustment Section
As you know, I am a fan of the scone and so I went back to one of Susan Purdy’s tried and true recipes from her fabulous high altitude cookbook Pie in the Sky, and added some new ingredients to make it festive for the holiday season. Here is a recipe for Prune (or dried plums if the word Prune scares you) and Cardamom Scones, the aroma will kill you!

Ingredients
1 cup diced pitted prunes (easy to cut up with lightly oiled scissors)
2 cups A.P. flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground Cardamom
7 tablespoons cold butter cut up
1 large room temp egg
3/4 cup whole milk

Procedure
Preheat oven to 425. Measure the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and cardamom into the bowl of your food processor, fitted with the steel blade. Add the cut up butter and pulse till mixture resembles small crumbs. Dump out mixture into a bowl. Add the prunes and toss to coat so they don’t sink. In a small bowl, combine the egg and milk. Make a well in the center of dry mixture and add liquids. Stir everything together with a fork just till dough comes together. It will be sticky — don’t panic!

With floured fingers, pull off 8 lumps of dough each about 2 x 2 1/2 inches and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet lined with parchment. You can leave the dough round or pat into wedge shapes. Brush top of each scone with a little milk and sprinkle with some sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes. When done they will turn golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean. Call me when they are done!

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
This is the first meal I ever cooked for my husband. It was stuffed tenderloin of pork with apricots and prunes, and by dessert time — yes, I was dessert — the deal was sealed. Need I say more..?

Ingredients
1 pork tenderloin ( enough for 2-3 people)
8 dried apricots cut into slivers
1/4 cup dried cherries
6 pitted prunes cut into quarters
2 teaspoon thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoons dijon mustard
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Kitchen twine

Procedure
Rinse and pat dry tenderloin. Cut it open and butterfly it out so it's flat. Sprinkle opening with salt and pepper, add soy sauce, 1 teaspoon thyme and mustard. Top with chopped dry fruit, close pork around filling and tie closed. Sprinkle with remaining thyme. Place loin on sheet pan and roast in a 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.

In the meantime make the sauce:

In a small sauce pan melt 1 cup apricot preserves with 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoon soy sauce, and 2 tablespoons water. Heat and stir and adjust to your taste. If you want spicy, you can add 1 pureed chipolte pepper. 5 minutes before pork is done, brush on some of this glaze. Careful, with so much sugar in the sauce it will burn fast. Serve the rest of the glaze on the side.